Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[15] Charlestown Path crossed the Common. The other portion of North Avenue was the “highway to Menotomy.” The “highway to Charlestown,” or the “Charlestown path,” as before stated, was the present Kirkland Street. In the impaled land, the principal highway was the “highway to the Oyster Bank,” or the “highway into the neck,” extending through Arrow Street, Main Street, and Pleasant Street, to a point near Cottage Street, and thence diagonally across the present streets towards Washington Square. From Pleasant Street a path diverged westerly, and followed the border of the upland, next to the marsh, and was called the “highway to Captain's Island.” ¹ From the junction of Pleasant and Main streets, the highway extended easterly, nearly in the track of Main Street, and at a later day was called the “highway to Pelham's Island.” Between the “old field” and “small-lot hill,” was the “highway to the common pales,” now called Dana Street, the direction of which, however, is somewhat changed, the northerly termination now being several rods more westerly than it was at first. Another branch extended southerly from Main Street to Riverside, originally called the “highway into the little neck,” now Putnam Avenue. From the “town” into the “highway to the oyster-bank” there were two principal entrances: one being a continuation of Braintree (now Harvard) Street, from Holyoke Street easterly, through Harvard Street and the northerly portion of Bow Street to Arrow Street, and indifferently called “Field Lane” and the “highway to the oyster-bank;” the other being a continuation of Spring (now Mount Auburn) Street, or rather branching from a sharp angle in Crooked (now Holyoke) Street, opposite to the site of the printing office, and finding along the higher land above the westerly portion of Bow Street, until it intersected Field Lane at the present junction of Bow and Arrow streets; this was indifferently called “Back Lane,” and “Cow-yard Row.” “Cow-yard Lane,” separating the house-lots from the yards in the rear, extended across the College enclosure, from the Common to the “Old Field,” at the distance of about a hundred feet from Harvard Street, having an outlet into Harvard Street about a hundred feet easterly from the present Holyoke Street; this, like that into which it entered, was called “Field Lane.” Cow-yard Lane and Field Lane north of Harvard